Main Menu

Sorkin Goes Up to Eleven

The following clip from Newsroom is compelling, no doubt. I saw this opener and I couldn’t wait for more.

But about 5 minutes in, I found myself wanting less. The show nods to the busyness of a newsroom. It’s all go, go, go, with clever dialog that you have to rewind to hear. If Aaron Sorkin were in a writing workshop, one of his fellow students, or the teacher perhaps, might tell him that he was falling victim to the pitfalls of the mimetic fallacy. He is filling the show with so much anxiety, urgency and breathless fast talking that as an viewer, I just wanted to press pause. And I did in fact. This coupled with the fact that the soundtrack is a heart-string pulling bit of emotional manipulation, and someone is making a speech about honesty and integrity and real journalism every five seconds. It’s like if you took people who thought they were really important in the world (actors) and told them to act like the only people who act like they are more important than them (journalists). Don’t get me wrong, I thank God every day for actors–some of them–and reporters–a few of them, but this is just too overwrought and self-righteous for my taste. And I am an uber liberal. Perhaps the show will prove me wrong. That is, if I can watch it again.